Play It By Trust
by Zolarix Aster
Summary: "Are there any mirrors nearby?" "Why? Are we going to try to give Klarion seven years bad luck? Yeah, not happening." The perils of unwelcomed mind-guests. Oneshot.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own Young Justice or any of the characters within. I'm just playing with them a bit.

Written for a prompt on the YJAM: _Despite how brief his stint as Dr. Fate was, Wally can still hear Nabu when he's near enough to the Helmet of Fate (how near is up to you anon.) Surprisingly, Nabu is kind of a bitchy roommate._

Nabu (aka Doctor Fate) is a Lord of Order. Therefore, he gets to_ **talk like this**_**. **Which obviously isn't fair to those of us who can't talk in italics.

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><p>Wally West was concerned about a lot of things: a history test. That cute girl in his advanced chemistry class. Not running into walls or buildings or trucks on the way home. Villains with weird gadgetry that tended to go "boom" at inconvenient times.<p>

Until now, schizophrenia had not been on that list.

"_The last time I checked, leaving someone trapped in a room by themselves was only permissible under specific circumstances."_

Wally jumped a bit and looked around his room. There had been murmurs and mumblings in the back of his head all day, but he had been surrounded by people until he had gotten home. And this was the clearest the voice had been yet.

"_I'm suddenly rather glad you're not my host. You're unexpectedly slow."_

Okay, that slightly-smug-but-mostly-just-pissy tone of voice sounded oddly familiar. Not Artemis, though, she usually didn't talk in his head when they weren't on missions.

"_Of course, perhaps it wouldn't be an issue if you had kept your oath, rather than leaving me useless on a shelf!"_

Wally clutched his head as Doctor Fate's voice got steadily more grouchy. This… was not good.

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><p>"Your mind looks fine." Megan frowned at Wally as he frowned at the helmet sitting on the counter. "You said he's… in your head?"<p>

Wally nodded. For now Nabu was being silent, but the speedster wasn't so optimistic to think it would last.

_**So. Are you finally going to find someone to put me to use? **_Doctor Fate asked. He didn't sound hopeful. Wally lifted the helmet to eye level, ignoring Megan's concerned look.

"Honestly, I'm not really inclined to let you out. You seem to have a nasty habit of hijacking bodies, or maybe that's just me."

_**That's just you.**_

Great. Doctor Fate had developed a sense of humor.

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><p><em><strong>This room is dull<strong>_**.**

Wally thudded his head against the desk, drawing bemused looks from the students around him as the teacher continued her lecture on the Industrial Revolution. At some point Nabu had –apparently—given up on the getting-a-host thing and just decided to roll with the punches. And by "roll with the punches" Wally actually meant "be as annoying as possible."

_**There aren't even any windows. I am starting to collect dust. Also, I believe the cat-mask is trying to mock me.**_

"Seriously," Wally tried to mutter as quietly as possible. "Get out of my head. Don't you have anything better to do? Talk to Mr. Nelson."

_**I have already heard Kent Nelson's life story. I was there for most of it.**_

"This is revenge, isn't it?" Judging by the funny looks from the girl sitting in front of him, he wasn't being quiet enough. He lowered his voice even more. "Really, the world is fine without you. Can't you just… go back to the Plane of Order or where-ever it is you're from?"

_**No. I must be here to help fight the tide of chaos when it comes again. And it will, that is its nature.**_

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><p><em>Damn him for being right, <em>Wally thought as he dodged a blast of red light. Klarion the Witch-boy had taken to attacking the team during random missions. He would either hit one of them with some random-as-pistachios spell and vanish, or stick around and insist they give him the helmet. By this point, Wally was almost tempted.

Speaking of…

_**Why don't you just attack the cat? **_Nabu said slowly, as if speaking to a child. _**It is his link to this plane.**_

"No kidding. He's kinda figured out that we know that." The building they were fighting in was large and full of boxes and old furniture, but remarkably empty of magic cats.

There were several seconds of silence only broken by explosions and bursts of light before Nabu spoke again. _**Are there any mirrors nearby?**_

"Why?" Wally looked around, more to check if his teammates were still okay (and not paying attention to him) than to check for mirrors and tried to sound as skeptical as possible. "Are we going to try to give Klarion seven years bad luck? Yeah, not happening."

_**Mirrors can deflect his spells. **_Nabu sounded unbearably smug, but suddenly Wally didn't mind so much. He eyed his surroundings and grinned.

"Angles and light refraction? I can work with that."

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><p>It worked, and Young Justice returned to Mount Justice weary and slightly singed, but with a successfully completed mission. As soon as Wally could slip away he did, going to the storage room where the Helmet of Fate rested on the shelf.<p>

"There isn't anyone available to act as a host, you know." There was no response. "I _checked._ The League has a couple people who know about magic and stuff, they might've been able to handle it –and I'm _not_ tossing someone into this who doesn't know exactly what they're getting into—but they all have their own responsibilities."

Nabu was silent. Wally shook his head and scoffed.

"I don't even know why I'm here." He turned to leave, but stopped himself again. "Fine. I owe you. But that doesn't mean I trust you. Having you in my head is bad enough."

As he began to leave again, Nabu spoke.

_**I can accept this period of… non-activity, as long as Chaos does not rule. You've done well enough stopping the witch-boy so far. But… **_there was a long pause as Nabu hesitated, _**I would appreciate a change of scenery.**_

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><p>Megan paused as she pulled out ingredients for her new cookie recipe. There was something different about the kitchen… just off, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. She paused in her quest for vanilla and looked around the room.<p>

"Oh!"

The Helmet of Fate was sitting on top of the refrigerator, yellow and shiny in the light of the kitchen. Megan hovered up to where she could reach it.

"How did you get in here?"

Silence.

"Hello, Megan, of course it's not going to say anything! Well, I'd better put you back in the souvenir room."

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><p>Kaldur closed his eyes as he took in the calm of the sea air as dawn peaked timidly over the horizon. The surface was interesting, and swimming pools were all very well, but there were times when Kaldur had all the appreciation in the world for a base so near the ocean.<p>

As he walked along, eyes still closed, his good mood was knocked away when he tripped over a hard object lying, half-buried, in the sand. It was yellow and shiny and clearly malevolent.

Kaldur sighed and mourned the dying remains of his pleasant morning.

"I suppose I should put you back in the mountain."

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><p>Superboy paused as he entered Mount Justice. From this entrance he could hear most of the other things going on. Kaldur was swimming. Wally, Robin and Artemis were at school. And Megan… was chatting with someone?<p>

He walked over and peered through the door, cautious in case of explosions and/or radioactive cookies, both of which had caused issues in the past week.

No explosions. Nothing was glowing. Megan was briskly stirring some type of cookie dough. Ignoring the fact that Superboy was fairly certain that cookies weren't supposed to be turquoise, things looked normal. Megan was happily chatting about Mars, but there wasn't anyone… why was the Helmet of Fate sitting on top of the flour?

"—it's colder there than it is here of course, but – Superboy! Hi!"

"Why is there that helmet in here?"

"Oh!" The bowl and whisk wobbled as Megan got flustered. "It keeps showing up and at first I kept putting it back in the souvenir room, but that didn't seem to have any effect so I've just been talking to it and it's really rather pleasant, and um…um… Want to help me with my cookies?"

Superboy shrugged.

"Okay."

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><p><em><strong>So, this is your room. It's even less impressive than I imagined.<strong>_

"Hey, you didn't want to be left at the mountain over the next few days, so stop complaining." Megan and Conner were going on a long-term school trip or something and Kaldur had duties back in Atlantis. Hence, Mount Justice would be empty, and Nabu had gotten used to people. Not that he would ever admit it.

_**This isn't a bedroom, this is an abandoned warzone.**_

Wally growled and dropped the helmet on the only empty spot on the desk. Just because his room wasn't perfectly orderly and tidied up didn't mean snippety Lords of Order got to comment on it.

"I can still take you back to Mount Justice, you know. It's like, a fifteen minute run." Okay, closer to an hour, but it'd be worth it.

But Nabu didn't respond, so Wally dug out his history book and prepared for a long and boring 30 pages on 18th century capitalism.

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><p><em><strong>Wake up!<strong>_

"Wha-at?" Was it the monkeys again? He thought they all got destroyed by the volcano—

_**This isn't your ridiculous dream. Wake up!**_

Right. No monkeys. Steel factories and—

_**Look out your window.**_

The was a faint light coming from behind some other houses. Dawn, already? Damn, he still had ten more pages…

Wait. Sunlight wasn't green. Wally shook his head, dissipating the sleep-induced blurriness, and ran for his sneakers.

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><p>As he pulled a blanket over his head an hour later, shoes still on and history still not read, Wally decided that midnight alien invasions sucked. A lot.<p>

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><p><em><strong>What's this?<strong>_

Wally grinned as he set up the pieces on his desk.

"A chess board."

Nabu's mind-voice was brusque. _**I realize that. Why?**_

"Simple. You move, I move. I go away for classes, you ponder strategies and utterly destroy my defenses when I get back."

When Nabu didn't respond, the speedster grinned even more.

"So do you want to go first or not?"

_**You appreciate not being dissected by aliens that much?**_

Wally grimaced. "I'd rather not think about that too much just yet, thanks."

Silence reigned in the messy room for several moments.

_**Pawn to E4.**_

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><p>AN: Play it by Trust is actually a chess variation where both sides have the same color pieces. Once the game starts and pieces have been moved, the players just have to trust each other on whose pieces are whose.<p>

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